NOVPUB54: Chapter 54: Singularity (Please Favorite, Follow, and Vote)
54: Chapter 54: Singularity (Please Favorite, Follow, and Vote)
With a violent collision sound, He Ao took a half step back, his feet sinking into the ground, while the young man was sent flying backward and landed on the ground with a thud.
KO!
He Ao quickly walked over to the young man’s side.
It seemed like the young man had passed out, his muscles that had swelled up rapidly deflating to their original form.
When a person’s jaw is struck forcefully, the immense impact transmits along the skull, causing a mild concussion within the cranium, which momentarily makes the brain lose control over the body.
The external manifestation is fainting.
Once He Ao was sure the young man had fainted, he deactivated the Super Memory effect.
With the force he had used, the young man should be out for about ten minutes, which ought to be enough time for Zhang Ansha to arrive.
In fact, from the moment he activated Super Memory to knocking out the young man, only five seconds had passed.
But those five seconds were enough to make him feel a shred of weakness, as powerful as Super Memory was, it incurred too great a cost.
Bang—
A crisp door slamming sound caught He Ao’s attention.
He looked up, only to see a pretty girl in a loose sweater and black stockings, bumping into the iron gate of the courtyard.
She held a large elderly cell phone with the flashlight on, looking confusedly outside.
“Liu Nan?” he asked, somewhat perplexed, “Aren’t you waiting outside for rescue?”
“Ah?
He Ao?”
Liu Nan, called by name, turned around, surprise evident on her face as she saw He Ao, “How come you are here?”
Then she looked toward the rust-covered red gate beside her, took two steps back, and seemed confused, “How am I here?
Wasn’t I just hiding from the wind behind the haystack?”
He Ao’s eyebrows furrowed, as he lowered his gaze to the spot in front of him where the unconscious young man had been, only to find it empty.
The stone tables and the water jar that the young man had used as heavy objects and thrown away had somehow returned to their original places.
“Run!”
Without any hesitation, He Ao shouted loudly and immediately dashed toward the gate.
Super Memory, explode!
Liu Nan hadn’t yet grasped the situation when He Ao grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards the outside.
They stepped past the doorway and rushed out of the gate.
Outside was a thick mist.
He Ao hesitated for a moment but still turned off Super Memory.
The mist was clearly not normal, but he had limited time to use Super Memory, which should only be activated in the face of formidable enemies or during critical moments.
“He Ao, I…
I think I recognize that gate.”
At this moment, Liu Nan, still held by He Ao, suddenly spoke up.
“Hmm?”
As He Ao moved forward, fumbling his way, he hummed to signal Liu Nan to continue talking.
“I had just broken free from the kidnapper’s hold and seemed to have come up to the courtyard gate we were just at.
The gate was ajar at that time, so I peeked inside and then got captured by the kidnapper again.”
Liu Nan paused, “I felt like there was something in the courtyard that was drawing me in.”
“Drawing you in?”
He Ao continued to walk forward; the dense fog seemed to strongly impede vision.
He took a couple of steps forward, and the vague shape of an object slowly came into view.
“Exactly.
It’s a strange feeling, like I can’t explain it well, as if I was meant to go that way, and then I went.”
Liu Nan explained haltingly as He Ao pulled her along.
“Hmm.”
He Ao nodded his head.
Despite Liu Nan’s description sounding fantastical, he no longer found anything strange about her circumstance given that things like Transcendents and Copy Worlds had come into play.
“You believe me?”
Liu Nan was taken aback; she thought He Ao might suspect her of making things up.
“Our interests are aligned right now, you have no reason to lie to me.”
He Ao responded calmly, by then they had arrived in front of the vague object.
It was an ancient stone cistern.
Nowadays, cisterns are generally made of ceramics or metal, carving a cistern from stone is time-consuming and labor-intensive, this stone cistern had to be several decades old at least.
“Do you still have a signal on your phone?”
He Ao rested his hand on the edge of the water tank and suddenly asked.
“Ah?” Liu Nan was startled, He Ao’s cell phone had been in her hand.
She unlocked the screen and glanced at it.
“There’s no signal,”
Then she paused, “You have two missed calls, how come I didn’t notice just now…”
He Ao turned around, took the phone from her hand, and unlocked it.
The missed calls were from Zhang Ansha.
Zhang Ansha had called twice in a row, and judging by the time in the record of the assimilation, it must have been when Liu Nan was contacting the police.
Since both attempts were unsuccessful, Zhang Ansha sent a text message to He Ao.
[He Ao, your location is showing an anomaly nearby, a place where strange phenomena occur.
Be careful.
The anomaly looks like an abandoned mansion with an unlocked, rusty red gate.
It attracts passersby to move antiques from their own homes or items of special nature inside to place them.
Currently, there have been no casualties, but we haven’t started an investigation yet, so we don’t know if there are any other mutations.
Be sure to be careful.]
He Ao looked at the text message on the phone, silent for a moment, and then looked back.
“What’s wrong, He Ao?”
Liu Nan, who was coming around to look at the text message, was puzzled by He Ao’s actions, then she also turned her head.
What came into her view was a tightly closed red gate.
They were not outside the gate, but rather inside it.
Ghost wall illusion.
A term emerged from the depths of Liu Nan’s mind.
She shivered, instinctively moving closer to He Ao.
They had not charged out of the gate.
Instead, they had circled back and charged into the yard.
“What, what should we do?”
Liu Nan was somewhat panic-stricken.
The strong kidnapper had displayed inhuman strength, but at least he was human.
But the situation they were encountering now seemed to have surpassed what humans could understand.
“Let’s try to climb over it.”
He Ao closed his eyes.
The images that Super Memory had recorded just moments ago quickly reassembled in his mind, forming a meticulous three-dimensional model.
Then, leading Liu Nan by the hand, he walked a few steps, passed through the mist, and arrived at the wall.
First, He Ao picked up a stone from the ground and made a mark on the wall.
Then, with Liu Nan in tow, he climbed up the wall.
On the other side of the wall was also thick fog.
He thought for a moment, then jumped down—since he couldn’t directly “absorb” when jumping from top to bottom, so he wrapped his arm around Liu Nan’s shoulders.
At this moment, neither of them was concerned with these details.
They were facing a situation they had never encountered before, one that was even somewhat eerie.
“We’re back.”
Liu Nan’s gaze focused on the mark He Ao had just made.
After they had climbed the wall, they found themselves back where they started.
“It seems we can’t get out by regular means.”
He Ao released Liu Nan and fell into thought.
The message from Zhang Ansha indicated that this anomaly wasn’t very dangerous; it just lured people to move things into it, and people wouldn’t get hurt.
But now, it seemed that this courtyard didn’t want to let them leave, or perhaps, specific conditions had to be met to leave?
“Shall we go inside the house to check?
There might be some clues in the house?”
Liu Nan suggested after some thought.
She had recovered from the initial panic, and although she was still nervous and scared, she knew that neither would help them.
He Ao’s composure also affected her.
This idea coincided with He Ao’s thoughts.
He glanced at Liu Nan and nodded lightly.
Easily finding the direction to the house by comparing the surroundings with the model in his mind, He Ao led Liu Nan through the mist to the front of the house door.
In He Ao’s memory, the house connected to this courtyard had only one iron-chained, tightly shut door.
But at the moment, the door was ajar, and the chains had disappeared into thin air.
After hesitating for a moment, He Ao slowly pushed open the house door.
Dimly lit kerosene lamps flickered to life inside the house, illuminating item after item neatly placed within.
